a notebook on cinema, hyperreality, and longing . . .

December 08, 2010

the hyperreality of the wikileaks 'scandal'

Two great op-ed articles came out last week on the supposed wikileaks 'espionage' scandal. (At least that's the law under which Julian Assange is being charged by the U.S. --a 1917 espionage law applied to the second decade of the 21st century!) The ruse is up for the coalition of market oriented nations, however, dissenters from all walks of political and intellectual life are emerging.

Matthew Dowd, former political strategist for George Bush II, recently chastised both U. S. parties for failing to call a spade a spade: government secrets are paternal attempts to keep governments safe from us rather than keeping us safe from other governments. Truth is not the goal for a government supposedly by the people, of the people and for the people ... maintaining the ruse of power. (cached source: Matthew Dowd's To Tell The Truth)

Now, Italian polymath Umberto Eco (film theorist, semiologist, Medieval historian, novelist, cultural critic) has written a short and concise take on wikileaks. Here is the gist:

The WikiLeaks affair has twofold value. On the one hand, it turns out to be a bogus scandal, a scandal that only appears to be a scandal against the backdrop of the hypocrisy governing relations between the state, the citizenry and the press. On the other hand, it heralds a sea change in international communication – and prefigures a regressive future of “crabwise” progress.

Eco published a book of essays in the late 1970's entitled Travels in Hyperreality which anticipated much of these problems by 30 years. Hyperreality is a cultural theory of late-capitalism that few know about but everyone is aware about. We live it daily and strive through practice and purchase to overcome. Eco believes that the dishonesty sensed by Matthew Dowd in the U.S government's handling of wikileaks actually reveals the depths of the hyperreality phenomenon in our lives:

But let’s take it one step at a time. First off, the WikiLeaks confirm the fact that every file put together by a secret service (of any nation you like) is exclusively made up of press clippings. The “extraordinary” American revelations about Berlusconi’s sex habits merely relay what could already be read for months in any newspaper (except those owned by Berlusconi himself, needless to say), and the sinister caricature of Gaddafi has long been the stuff of cabaret farce. ...

... One last observation: In days of yore, the press would try to figure out what was hatching sub rosa inside the embassies. Nowadays, it’s the embassies that are asking the press for the inside story.

So, as in the truthful picture above, this incestuous relationship comes clean. It is the reason that newspapers are not being chased down for printing and reporting the same information that Assange leaked. When it comes to principalities of power information is a weapon and the true constituency of goverment is the media.

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Cinema Out of Joint is an ongoing reflection on films that best describe the mood, situation, and going-on in Time Out of Joint. It's a glimpse into the films I wrestle with, that have gotten into me and I can't shake ... or don't ever want to.
Cinema Out of Joint is intended to serve as an ongoing guide of landmarks as the soul wayfares through the wondrous and perilous landscape of cinema:

trace n. A visible mark, such as a footprint, made or left by the passage of a person, animal, or thing. Evidence or an indication of the former presence or existence of something; a vestige. // trac-es v. tr. To follow the course or trail of: trace a wounded deer: tracing missing persons. To locate or discover by searching or researching evidence. / v. intr. To make one's way along a trail or course. To have origins; be traceable.